One day some adults came to my grandparents’ house.  They were going through our community looking for children who needed help and they found me.  When they heard that I was a naughty boy who had no parents they said they would take care of me.  I would still live with my grandparents but they would come and visit me.  And they do.  They are Care Workers from Nyota Care Point, but to me they are my new mothers and fathers.  When they visit we talk – we have talked about my behaviour and how I can grow up to be a nicer boy.  They talk to me about God and how he loves me.  I have been going to church and am on my church choir team.

Now I also get to eat with other children at the Care Point.  We play together and I like getting to meet and know new friends.  You would probably say I am a happy boy now, I smile a lot more.  In this picture I am wearing my new school uniform!  I am in grade 6 at Kitabataba Community School and I love school.  I wish my parents were still alive but I thank God I have my grandparents and my new mothers and fathers.  They really love me. 

Lesa namishishimuna  

Lesa namishishimuna

Pankasanshenu na fukama

Namishishimuna  (a Bemba worship favourite)

(Father we worship You

Father we worship You

We bow down at Your feet

We worship You)  

God showed up and we are changed!  

Please have a look at the photos on our Flickr site and the slide show on vimeo.

In the 2 weeks that Iain and Martin spent in South Africa, they were exposed to true brokenness and suffering. They saw for themselves just how devastated many communities are and how the orphan crisis continues to sweep across Africa. They saw vulnerability in its most severe form. Iain and Martin also experienced the beauty, vibrancy, richness and joy of Africa. They served alongside both local African people and volunteers from Hands at Work. They became part of the Hands family.

When I came to volunteer in Africa, I said I was coming to give.  Give my time, my passion, my resources.  Soon after arriving, I realized I wasn’t very good at giving at all.  I came into living in a community of people from all over the world and learned that at Hands at Work, we live as a family.  We live by the core values of servanthood and giving freely.  Freely.  Not conditionally.  It didn’t take me long to realize I lived by giving conditionally.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in a first world country.  Maybe it’s because deep in my heart there is a selfish girl who doesn’t want to share, who wants things to be about her sometimes, who wants people to recognize when she does something well.  I saw this ugly side of myself in little things.  Someone would ask to borrow my milk and I’d say yes but I’d think, “Now I’m going to run out and I can’t get to the grocery store for a week! They should really be more organized.”  I hated myself for thinking that way.  Why couldn’t I just let it go? Why couldn’t I give and be happy my family member knew I was someone they could ask?  Why didn’t it feel like a privilege to give to my brothers and sisters?  I started praying God would help me give freely – give without condition, give to glorify Him, give because His word says “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor 9: 7)

In Zambia I met Jean, a Care Worker at Chibuli Community Based Organization.  I was honoured to walk with her through the community and go on home visits with her.  The children we visited would cuddle up to her as we sat outside.  She would wrap her arms around them, all of them children who have been orphaned and are living with aging grandparents.  We walked so far through the tall grass and huts of Chibuli to get to four homes, something Jean is used to doing every week.  On the long walk back to the Care Centre after our visits, Jean started talking to me about how to be a Care Worker, it was like she was training me for my future as one.  She said, “It was hard at first, giving to the children.  When I started it was really hard.  But, it gets easier!  I’ve been a Care Worker for 3 years.  I just kept doing it and it got easier.  Now there are children in my home all the time.  I have my 3 children, but I have many more.  I tell all the children to come to my house and I will bathe them.  And feed them.  I say ‘bring your clothes!’  So they come, they bring their clothes, I wash their clothes and I wash their bodies and I give them food.”  She said it with joy and with love. 

God spoke right through Jean to me: Giving gets easier.  I can give with my heart like Jean does.  Not today, but maybe one day.  It’s a strange thing, to think of practising giving. But it’s exactly what we can do as we seek out God and grow in our understanding of who Jesus truly is.  As I have tried to answer God’s call to care for and love others, He has shown me how to give without condition.  After a year of volunteering in Africa and praying about giving, it is a little bit easier.  I still have lots of moments where I see my hard heart, but I have more where I feel the love of God come through me.  We all have walls around our hearts, and ideas in our heads that make us second guess giving freely.  We have to keep fighting through.  Keep praying and asking God to radically transform us so we build His Kingdom in everything we do.

In 2011 Royie Nazombe, head of the Hands at Work Service Centre in Malawi, began mobilising the local church in Maonde and training volunteers from those local churches to be Care Workers, looking out for the most vulnerable people in their community. These churches and volunteers founded the Chisomo Community Based Organisation (CBO) in Maonde. Most people in Maonde have always passed by Sekani without a second glance. But Mlangani, one of the local volunteer Care Workers, took notice of him. Mlangani says, “He needed a new standard of life.  I couldn’t just watch people walk by him anymore”.  Mlangani stepped in to love and care for Sekani not only as a Care Worker, but as a friend, bringing food and clothes, and bathing Sekani daily.  The most radical change has been the involvement of the community in Sekani’s life. Mlangani’s relationship with Sekani has inspired the people of Maonde and has encouraged many to bring light into Sekani’s situation. Sekani had always lived in a tiny shack (see photo at left) with his mother, in which they would have to huddle at night just to sleep. A group of young Care Workers finally realised that this was an unacceptable situation. These young people, themselves very poor, pooled whatever they had and helped to construct a decent two-roomed house for Sekani and his mother (see photo at right).

No longer is Sekani forgotten and passed by with indifference.  Mlangani and many other Care Workers are bringing a change that gives hope for the future of Malawi. This is the church in action! The Dedza Service Centre has a team of volunteers working to support Chisomo and other CBO’s with the vision of bringing transformation to the vulnerable across the entire country.  And as this team looks to care for a nation, each day Mlangani will visit Sekani, ensuring one by one the vulnerable are loved and cared for.

* name has been changed

Thabo did not go to school until he was 11 years old.  For years, he spent his days wandering around the community of Oshoek.  No one cared if Thabo or his brother Mpho went to school, or took a bath, or had any food.  Thabo was trapped in the small, one-room stick and mud house he was born in with an abusive mother and a father who is mentally impaired, often out wandering through the woods. Thabo lived with four people, sleeping on the cold, wet floor every night, often experiencing neglect, but God intervened.

God called Sara to find Thabo.  Sara is a local Care Worker who is part of a group of volunteers from local churches who care for the most vulnerable children.  While doing home visits through Bambanani Community Based Organisation in 2011, Sara noticed Thabo sitting alone and wondered why a boy his age was not at school in the middle of the day.  As she talked to him she heard the story of a child who had never seen the inside of a classroom, never knew when his next meal would be, and was in desperate need of an adult in his life who would love and care for him.  Sara took Thabo into her heart and her life.  She talked to Thabo’s mother who agreed to let him and Mpho enrol in school. 

Today, Thabo is 12 and in Grade Four.  Sara is his second mother who visits him at home and cares for him.  She ensures he takes a bath and goes to school.  Though he still faces the challenge of living in the midst of an unstable family, he says he can cope, knowing it is never too long until Sara will visit.  He loves school and says one day he wants to work for, as he calls it, the “Fire Emergency Fighting Company”!  This young boy, who once felt abandoned, is now living a story of restoration and gradually healing from his trauma.

* name has been changed

Over the past year, Angel has become a part of the Ndlovu family.  She is a Care Worker from Pfunani CBO who volunteers to love and care for the most vulnerable children in Welverdiend.  Since Angel began providing home visits to this family of five, there has been a change in the children.  By ensuring the children are receiving the 3 Essential Services of food security, basic education, and basic health care, she has seen them go from being tired, hungry and anxious children, to a healthier family who wants to build a relationship with her.  They share their challenges with Angel and she, supported by Pfunani CBO, does whatever she can to help.  Most importantly, she is a mother to the children when their own mother is unwell, and a friend to Christina who knows there is someone looking out for her children.

Ten years ago, in this small bush community, her family's life was forever changed.  At the age of four, Solofina and her three siblings lost their mother.  At that time, the children were unable to go to school as their father was not able to pay for their education.  The close-knit community of Malokota saw a need and took it upon themselves to adopt the whole family. 

Malokota Community Based Organization (CBO) is helping Solofina attend school by paying for her school fees, books, and uniform.  She also receives a nutritious meal each day at the feeding point.  At school, Solofina loves to draw and play netball with her friends. She especially enjoys English class.  According to her teacher, Japhet, Solofina is a good student and has many friends.  When Solofina grows up, she would like to be a doctor so that she may help those who are sick.

Solofina would like to give thanks to those who are supporting her, enabling her to get an education, and nourishing her not only physically and mentally, but also emotionally and spiritually. 

But there is hope.  Although they live alone now, the home visits provided by Ruth have given these children a mother who knows each of their names and their situations.  Ruth ensures all three children are going to school each day.  As the head of his household, she has taught Mike to care for and clean the home. 

Through the 3 Essential Services program, Ruth and Nhluvuko CBO have provided this family with a hot meal afterschool each day, school uniforms, a door and window frame for their home, and a mattress.  Ruth has built a very strong relationship with these children and they love and trust her as their mother.

February 20th to Sunday March 31st

Join our worldwide community as we pray together for 40 days and 40 prayer points.  As the international Hands at Work family, we will pray for the vulnerable children of Africa and ask God to reveal His heart for the poorest of the poor. Through each prayer point, we will ask God to remind us of not only the external challenges our children face, but the inner wounds that they live with every day.  As we ask Him to heal their wounds, we pray He will break our hearts. We know that as we seek God in serving the most vulnerable, we will be blessed with a fresh understanding of His heart. 

Download the 40 Days 2013 Prayer Guide and join our 40 Days 2013 online event
 
Join us and unite in global prayer to be a voice for the voiceless.